Offering more services will help Detroit district survive, administrator proposes

From The Detroit Free Press: The Detroit school system is planning radical changes in an effort to bring in money and become a smaller system of autonomous schools after years of enrollment and state-aid declines. The district's 2012-13 Action Plans include provisions such as allowing 10 high schools to govern themselves and allowing central-office functions such as food and police services to be sold to schools throughout the region. Emergency manager Roy Roberts, a retired General Motors executive, says the district must do what the auto industry did in order to survive: Provide better services to more customers.